1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computer systems and their operating systems, and more specifically to computer hardware configurations dependent on a selected operating system.
2. Description of the Related Art
During power up, power on self test (POST), and basic input/output system (BIOS) execution during the booting of the operating system, a typical computer system displays various information on the computer screen. A “Verbose” screen presents the user with information about the computer system during the initial stages of computer execution. BIOS has typically used the video input/output to prompt the user for passwords, and has accepted the computer set-up hot keys, and other functionality interacting with the user during the initial boot up of the computer system. Historically, the BIOS has performed a large amount of input/output processing, particularly video output processing. The BIOS also manipulates video hardware and memory while interactive input/output is processing. Most computer systems having a video display device include a full video buffer for output. The contents of the video buffer are displayed by the video graphics adapter. Output processing therefore requires providing a value to all the locations in the video buffer. However, the input/output processing during the initial BIOS execution is designed to present the user with options and receive user-generated commands that, generally speaking, may not be used frequently by many users. For example, hot keying during the BIOS execution is uncommon, since most such user activities can wait until the operating system has been loaded. The BIOS may prompt the user for passwords and other information, but this operation is typically fast and requires little memory. Even though the passwords may be entered before the operating system is loaded, these user-options normally do not require a full video screen buffer.
Video screen memory is high content memory and the use of a full video screen buffer for the verbose screen requires a dedication of memory space BIOS execution of video control processes can require a great deal of memory as well. Moreover, the loading of an entire verbose screen buffer, as well as the presentation of the verbose screen to the user on the video monitor, can extend the POST (Power On Self Test) execution time beyond the minimal levels.
As various software applications and hardware drivers are loaded into memory, it is also common to include icons on the display screen indicating that the application or driver is now available. This requires processing to determine screen location and to present the information to the user. This requires a great deal of memory processing space and time during BIOS.